


Onboard

by Zoadgo



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Acceptance, Anxiety, Canon Compliant, Comfort, F/F, Grounders in space, post 4x13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 07:30:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11099832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoadgo/pseuds/Zoadgo
Summary: They didn’t throw me overboard.It’s only one among the many thoughts that comes to Echo amidst the general panic racing incoherently through her mind, but it sticks with her for a moment. As everyone else bustles about, preparing the space station for life and engaging in no few embraces, Echo sits next to one of the life giving vents, gently touching where the mask had lain on her face. The mask she had shared with the others, all of them taking breaths in cycle, and none of them cutting her off at any point even though it almost killed them all.





	Onboard

_They didn’t throw me overboard._  
   
It’s only one among the many thoughts that comes to Echo amidst the general panic racing incoherently through her mind, but it sticks with her for a moment. As everyone else bustles about, preparing the space station for life and engaging in no few embraces, Echo sits next to one of the life giving vents, gently touching where the mask had lain on her face. The mask she had shared with the others, all of them taking breaths in cycle, and none of them cutting her off at any point even though it almost killed them all.   
   
“Hey there,” Raven - who Echo had never realized was so aptly named until she’d seen her flying through space, free and entirely thrilled with the gut wrenching lack of gravity - says, smiling down at Echo. “You know there’s air everywhere now, right?”  
   
Echo looks down the hall, towards Monty and Bellamy checking some wiring; Murphy, Emori, and Harper’s voices echoing as they unload the shuttle. Yes, of course she knows that, but…  
   
“I don’t trust it,” Echo admits in a small whisper. Any time that she’s not thinking about breathing, she can feel it again; asphyxiation not because she was being denied air, but because there simply was none to be had. And she knows that it’s just waiting for her, that void, just on the other side of the wall.  
   
“I thought you were some badass grounder warrior?” Raven goads her, and normally Echo would have risen to the challenge. But now what’s she supposed to do? She’s in space, apart from her people who wouldn’t have her anyway, living among enemies. With everything she’s been through in the last few days, Echo feels so unbelievably weak, worn down by it all in a way none of her training or missions had ever done.  
   
“I was.” Echo hates how tiny her voice is, how obviously fragile she is, but she can’t help it. “There’s no ground any more.”  
   
“Sure there is, you’re sitting on it.” Raven stamps her foot lightly to indicate the floor, and Echo shakes her head.  
   
“No, because on the other side of this?” She raps her knuckle on the metal. It sounds wrong to her, Echo had always hated metal. Give her wood or brick buildings any day. “There’s nothing. Not even air.”  
   
She can feel it again, the void pulling at the inside of her lungs, and Echo has to turn her head to the vent and inhale the swift moving air. She barely manages to restrain it from being a panicked gasp, and tears burn in her eyes. She hates this, hates everything about the situation, and yet there had been a few brief moments of joy: when the thruster had detached, the first few seconds of zero G before it had become unnerving; when they all had collapsed in a pile in front of the vents, for a moment brilliantly alive.  
   
When she had realized that they could have let her die, but they hadn’t.  
   
“Scared?” Raven asks, and Echo closes her eyes as she gives the smallest of nods. “Good.”  
   
Echo’s eyes fly open and she looks up at Raven in surprise. Raven simply shrugs, “If you aren’t scared of the vacuum of space, you’re an idiot.”  
   
“But you love it,” Echo says, certain of that fact. It had only taken one moment of seeing Raven in zero G to know that that’s what she truly loves, where she’s truly alive. Just like Echo with a fight, Raven’s entire life is a means to get to zero G.   
   
“Well yeah, I’m an idiot like that. But space is scary, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. We’re safe here, though. This baby will gets us through as long as we need her.” Raven affectionately pats the wall of the space station.  
   
 _Us. They didn’t throw me overboard._  
   
“Why didn’t you just take my oxygen?” Echo blurts out, and Raven looks stunned at the question. “None of you have any real reason to save me, I’m just another set of hands. I know nothing about all of this.” Echo indicates the ship with a vague gesture of her hand.  
   
Raven frowns at Echo for a moment, seeming to weigh her with her gaze. Echo wonders what she’s looking for; to see if Echo can handle the truth? Or perhaps if she even wants to tell it to Echo? Echo herself doesn’t know if she really wants to know, but at least it’s giving her something else to think about, and her lungs are able to do their job. Eventually, Raven nods and nudges the toe of Echo’s boot with her own.  
   
“Like it or not you’re one of us now. That’s means we’re gonna do everything we can to save you. And we expect you to do the same for us.” Raven looks expectantly at Echo.  
   
Echo frowns as she thinks over the situation. No matter what, Raven’s right, obviously. But is Echo really willing and eager to help these people, who have been her enemies more times than she cares to count? She knows she shouldn’t be, knows that Skaikru in general lacks anything she recognizes as honour, but, well… There’s that thought it her mind again.  
   
 _They didn’t throw me overboard._  
   
Echo nods to Raven, a simple movement heavy with meaning, and Raven responds with a short nod of her own.  
   
“Now, I need some muscle. Give me a hand?” Raven holds her hand out to Echo, and Echo takes it, climbing to her feet. She focuses on Raven’s hand in hers rather than her distance from the vent, reminding herself that she’s done far more difficult things than this before.  
   
“What do you need me to do?”   
   
Raven slings her arm around Echo’s shoulder and smiles. “Oh, just about everything. Don’t worry I’ll be the brains, you be the brawn, and we’ll get through this alright.”  
   
Raven smiles, and Echo wants to believe her. For that moment, as they walk down the hall away from the vent, she even manages to.

**Author's Note:**

> I am very tired but I swore to myself I'd upload this today, so yeah! I love Echo, I love her in space, and I love her with Raven. I also love [coldsaturn](http://coldsaturn.tumblr.com) for beta'ing this even though it's hardly more than a drabble <3
> 
> If you want to love on Echo with me, hit up [on tumblr!](http://jonnmurphy.tumblr.com) And thank you all for reading, commenting, and leaving kudos <3


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